In the Shadows of War
by messrs marauders
Summary: To the other, they each represented humanity's capacity for goodness, for hope. Because, in each other, they could both find validation and redemption. The mudblood and the bloodtraitor. They understood each other in a way that no one else could. Two sides of the same coin. Yin and Yang. And in the following years, it was this bond that reminded them why they were fighting.


_This is not a romance. I ship jily so hard which obviously means I am crying approximately 99% of the time. This is a story of friendship that was formed because of the darkness in the world._

_Disclaimer: Despite my several attempts at brewing polyjuice potion, I still am not J K Rowling, nor do I claim to have any ownership of the characters or places within this story._

* * *

There was a time when Lily barely tolerated Sirius. He was undoubtedly the most obnoxious, selfish, thoughtless boy out of the four Marauders, and Lily felt no desire to ever get to know him better. He was so unfairly beautiful and so self-assured and arrogant in his attractiveness that he walked around like the entire Hogwart's population should bow to his every wish and she despised this. At least with James, he had an almost self-depreciating arrogance about him. Sirius was just insufferable.

Those who only vaguely knew Lily during her Hogwarts years – years in which she determinedly made known to everyone that she utterly disapproved of Black – they would have been surprised to learn that in four years, the two of them would be such close friends that they corresponded with each other by letter, even when Sirius did no such thing with his own best friend.

What, then, had happened in those four short years to turn Lily's disapproval into a friendship that kept her strong and steady in her darkest days? They would wonder, but they would never guess the true emotional bond the two of them shared; providing comfort and support that was so much more meaningful when you realised that, by all rights, they should be on opposite sides of the war.

* * *

She never meant to overhear something so intimate, so private, but when they entered the room, she hadn't emerged from her hiding place to announce her presence. Now, with his words hanging heavily in the stuffy air of the empty classroom, she was too embarrassed to face them. She hadn't paid them much mind at first, expecting them to talk about nothing more serious than mischief and homework, but when Sirius' first sob had punctured the silence, she had frozen, knowing desperately that she should cover her ears but failing to do anything about it.

"I'm so bloody _sick_ of it, James." He had said after a couple of minutes. His voice was soft, defeated. So unlike the boisterous, loud, obnoxious boy she thought she knew.

"I know," murmured James consolingly.

"I can't do this anymore. All I ever hear from them is what a disappointment I am, how I've failed them, how they can't accept me anymore." He sniffled and cursed angrily. "They're all _bastards_, the lot of them," He was angry now, and Lily head the unmistakeable sound of a desk being kicked hard. "But," he continued, and it horrified Lily how broken he sounded. This unbreakable, careless boy reduced to something so vulnerable and small. "They are my family. My _parents_. There's still a part of me that wants to love them, and be loved, you know?" He sighed harshly. "And then again, I want to be as far away from them as possible. I see some of the looks I get here, you know. Especially from some of the Gryffindor students. They're all waiting for me to become just like my parents. Just like Bellatrix. I don't want people to define me by my parents."

"I get it, Padfoot. I do, but I'm your family too, me and Mum and Dad and Peter and Remus. Your family only defines you if you choose your family. You'll be okay." A watery chuckle came from Sirius.

"Merlin, you sounded like a right prick there Prongs, you fucking softie."

"Piss off," was James' reply, and then there was the sounds of a scuffle, and noises of protests and everyone was back to normal again. Everyone, except the redhead still hiding in the corner, her whole world spinning and readjusting, along with her perceptions of the two boys she thought were nothing more than the shallow mischief makers they appeared to be.

* * *

After this discovery, a new insight into Sirius' family, she began to make more sense of the boy.

He was fragile, she decided, and he had a big attitude to cover it up with. He was hurting and lonely and that was a feeling Lily understood all too well.

Her relationship with Petunia had deteriorated quickly after she began at Hogwarts, and now all that passed between them was a semi-forced smile and polite small talk at the dinner table. Petunia's rejection had stung bitterly, and the jabs she continued to make did hurt, but that was nothing compared to what it must be like to have your whole family reject you.

And, although she pitied him, she did so only in private. He was not the kind of person who liked being pitied.

So, she let him maintain his illusion of being carefree and childish. She watched silently as he laughed at the smallest, most immature things and how he was able to appear so happy and blasé about everything. He had to laugh at these small, menial things, she realised. If he didn't, if he gave into the pain he was surely feeling, he wouldn't heal. He laughed because if he didn't, he'd cry.

She began to talk to him more. Slowly at first. Just a word here and there. She felt that he needed all the friends he could get, and she wanted to do something for him, to try and ease his pain.

It was only now that she was looking for it that she saw the cracks in his tough outer exterior, and somehow, suddenly, she found herself beginning to truly like him. He was charming, even without the contrived façade. He was funny and generous and sometimes so thoughtful it shocked her.

She wasn't there when the huge altercation between him and Regulus happened, but she heard about it. Aside from the obvious tension and enmity between the brothers in the past, nothing this bad had happened between them ever before. Her heart broke for Sirius as she heard the scene recounted by her friends. The things that had been thrown from either side were hurtful and awful, and for the first time, Lily found herself wanting to comfort him herself.

* * *

It was late, and the muscles in Lily's legs protested angrily as she ascended the last few steps of the astronomy tower. The frustrated yelling and banging has ceased now, but as she poked her head around the entrance, she heard a muffled sigh.

Illuminated by the moon and silhouetted against its light, his features obscured by the shadows, a lonely, defeated figure hunched dangerously far over the railing.

Stifling a horrified gasp, and moving cautiously so as not to startle the figure, Lily approached.

"Black?" she asked tentatively. He did not acknowledge her. "Are you okay?" she ventured.

He huffed and shook his head.

"Leave me alone, Evans. I'm not in the mood." Though he tried to mask it, Lily was sure his voice was tearful and angry.

"Are –"

"Leave it!" he interrupted sharply. James had been right. He was in a volatile mood, and suddenly interfering didn't seem like such a good idea. Even his best mate had been dubious about this, telling her that he needed time alone.

"Okay … I'll just – I'll just go." She spun on her heel and retreated, but paused at the door. "For what it's worth, though, I don't think anyone ever deserved to be a Gryffindor more than you." She said softly.

He turned to her then, eyes wide and vulnerable and sparkling with unshed tears.

"Really?" his voice was broken and the need for validation and reassurance was so childlike that something maternal in Lily rose to the surface. She took a few steps forward.

"Sirius –" she began, and then shook her head. "You are immature, and often an idiot and many other things besides. But one thing you are not, one thing you most definitely cannot be, is a coward. I used to think I hated you… but after this whole thing with Voldemort, after seeing your family's name in the papers again and again, accused of murder and –"

"I am not my family!" he roared, mistaking the direction with which she was taking the conversation, his rage so tangible and so intense that he shook with passion.

"That's what I'm saying!" she said earnestly, willing him to understand. "I read about your cousins and your family and what they've done, and I can't help but wonder what they're like. What it must have been like to live with them for as long as you did. I can't hate you now that I know that, despite everything, despite growing up in a household full of hate and prejudice, you still have the courage to turn your back on them, to be something other than what you were brought up to be."

As she had been speaking, she saw the tears fall one by one, until, at the end of her outburst, tears were running down his face like rain on a windowpane.

"Do you actually think that?" his voice was hoarse and full of emotion. He walked forwards until he was right in front of her, taking her hand in his. "I can't tell you how much this means to me." He swiped angrily at his face, dashing away the evidence of his tears.

"I think you're one of the bravest people ever." She continued. "Every time I look at you, I'm reminded that people aren't all bad, that some good exists in this world. I hear about the murders and torturing and I feel so helpless and so afraid and so hopeless, and then I see you and I'm reminded that there are still good people willing to stand up for what's right, willing to risk everything for what they believe in." She touched his face gently and he leaned into her palm. "That, even after years of prejudiced teachings, you can still recognize what's good and right and what isn't."

"My family hate me." He whispered in the semi-darkness. She nodded slowly.

"I can't imagine – what it's like for you." She whispered back to him. "I don't know what your family is like, but I assume it's not pretty." She smiled then, trying to convey how much she valued him – one of her special smiles that lit up the room. They were rare, and rarer still now that Voldemort had become a bigger influence in the world.

"Lily…" He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "Thank you." He said eventually, giving up on trying to find the right words to express his gratitude. "Thank you so much. I used to think that people hated me just for my last name, it used to frustrate me – how no one would see me for just me. They've disowned me, you know, my family. Blasted me right of the tree." Lily was unsure as to what tree he was referring to, but she nodded all the same.

She walked to the railing and looked out at the half moon illuminating the night, casting everything in an ethereal silvery glow. He joined he seconds later and they stood in peaceful silence for a few minutes.

"Does Emmeline hate me?" he asked. Again, his voice was muted, so uncharacteristic of him. "After Bellatrix killed her brother… she looked at me like – like I was trash." Abject misery was stark on his face. Lily pondered this.

"She's hurt. She misses her brother. You're the easiest thing to blame," She decided, and then, seeing the look on his face, she carried on hurriedly, "not that she's right, of course. You're _nothing_ like them." He nodded, satisfied with her answer.

"I think, for the first time in forever, I feel good." He told her. A small measure of his half mocking tone was back, and it warmed her heart. "My family murders people like you, and you can forgive me for what they do. Maybe other people can forgive me too."

"You don't _need_ forgiveness. Why are you trying to apologise for your family?" He looked away, into the distance, shaking his head.

"I guess… for my whole life I've felt bad about what my family believes, I've felt… tainted. Like I needed to make up for them. Like I need to make amends."

"I never would have pegged you for an inferiority complex," she said lightly. He sent a glance her way – one eyebrow raised, a teasing smile on his lips.

"Not at all, Evans. I'm still the most handsome, charming, sexy guy you'll ever meet." She laughed and pushed him playfully on the arm and he chuckled at her, leaning into her ever so slightly, taking comfort from her proximity.

* * *

He was still obnoxious most of the time. He laughed at the most inappropriate things and there was no end to his dirty jokes, but she loved him deeply, in a way that she could never love anyone else. He loved her in the same way, in a land that was beyond friendship, beyond siblingship.

To the other, they each represented humanity's capacity for goodness, for hope. Because, in each other, they could both find validation and redemption.

The mudblood and the blood traitor.

They understood each other in a way that no one else could. Two sides of the same coin. Yin and Yang. And in the long years that followed, it was this bond that would remind them why they were fighting – for each other; for the understanding between them that was born only from this hatred and prejudice.

And in the shadows of war, they would be each other's beacon.

* * *

_Lily and Sirius' relationship has always intrigued me. It was Lily's letter to Sirius that inspired me to write this, partly because I truly do believe that they represent the two sides of war. Both of them were victims, of prejudice, of hate, but for entirely different reasons._

_This is a rather different relationship to many of the other ways they are portrayed in fanfiction. I like to think that they both gave each other comfort. A pureblood from an elitist house reassuring a mudblood, telling her she's not worthless or inferior, and a muggleborn comforting a blood traitor, making him understand that she doesn't hold him accountable for his family's mistakes._

_It might not be particularly canon, but I like it. I hope you do too._


End file.
